to be
and what they ought not to be, filled her mind to the exclusion of every
other topic. Rigorously and persistently Sir Isaac insisted they were
hers, asked her counsel, demanded her appreciation, presented as it were
his recurring bill for them.

Five of them were being built, not four but five. There was to be one,
the largest, in a conspicuous position in Bloomsbury near the British
Museum, one in a conspicuous position looking out upon Parliament Hill,
one conspicuously placed upon the Waterloo Road near St. George's
Circus, one at Sydenham, and one in the Kensington Road which was
designed to catch the eye of people going to and fro to the various
exhibitions at Olympia.

In Sir Isaac's study at Putney there was a huge and rather
splendid-looking morocco portfolio on a stand, and this portfolio bore
in excellent gold lettering the words, International Bread and Cake
Hostels. It was her husband's peculiar pleasure after dinner to take her
to turn over this with him; he would sit pencil in hand, while she,
poised at his request upon the arm of his chair, would endorse a
multitude of admirable modifications and suggestions. These hostels were
to be done--indeed they were being done--by Sir Isaac's tame architect,
and the interlacing yellow and mauve tiles, and the Doulton ware
mouldings that were already familiar to the public as the uniform of the
Stores, were to be used upon the facades of the new institutions. They
were to be boldly labelled

INTERNATIONAL HOSTELS

right across the front.

The plans revealed in every case a site depth as great as the frontage,
and the utmost ingenuity had been used to utilize as much space as
possible.

"Every room we get in," said Sir Isaac, "adds one to the denominator in
the cost;" and carried his wife back to her schooldays. At last she had
found sense in fractions. There was to be a series of convenient and
spacious rooms on the ground floor, a refectory, which might be cleared
and used for meetings--"dances," said Lady Harman. "Hardly the sort of
thing we want 'em to get up to," said Sir Isaac--various offices, the
matron's apartments--"We ought to begin thinking about matrons," said
Sir Isaac;--a bureau, a reading-room and a library--"We can pick good,
serious stuff for them," said Sir Isaac, "instead of their filling their
heads with trash"--one or two workrooms with tables for cutting out and
sewing; this last was an idea of Susan Burnet's. Upstairs there was t